Sheinbaum slams Line 12 victims’ attorney for ‘abuse’

After revealing that allegedly the lawyer Teofilo Benitez charges 4 million pesos to his clients for having changed legal defenders, the head of the government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaumcalled on victims of Line 12 — who are among the lawyer’s clients — to report the abuse to the authorities.

“It’s abuse, it’s barbaric. And all the victims are wary of these bullying lawyers. This figure – we recently discovered it in a victim’s complaint – not only asked them about 30% of what that the lawyer could obtain in a supposed negotiation, but also if they withdrew from the contract, the victims had to pay 3 to 4 million pesos” announced the president of the capital.

Teófilo Benítez has is “victim defense attorney“, as he is called. He is the legal representative of a group of people who were affected after the collapse of an elevated section of the line 12 of the metro public transport system (CS).

In addition, he is also the legal representative of the family of Sophia and Emeraldthe two young women who died in Mexico City after falling into an open sewer on their way to a concert.

“In a state of great pain, a lawyer approaches (the families) and offers them who knows what, and in the end they are almost extorted by the lawyer,” Sheinbaum lamented.

For this reason, the president of the capital invited citizens not to accept “this type of abuse, especially from this lawyer”, she stressed, because – according to the head of government – the lawyer approach the victims when there is a problem and “he makes them sign these contracts which are outrageous”.

In this way, the candidate for the presidential candidacy of Morena invited those concerned to go to the victims’ area of ​​the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ CDMX).

A few days ago, journalist Carlos Jiménez revealed photographs of the alleged service delivery contract that the lawyer signs with his clients, where a figure of 4 million pesos —as a “conventional penalty”—in the event of early termination of the employment relationship.

“In the event that the client decides to terminate this contract early or decides to contract professional services, understood as advice or legal action, from any other person outside the parties to this contract, a conventional penalty of four million euros will be pesos,” reads the sixth clause unveiled by the journalist.

For his part, Teófilo Benítez, in addition to being the lawyer for the group of victims of Line 12 and María Elvira Canchola Montoya (mother of Sofía and Esmeralda), also served as an advisor to some of those affected after the accident on metro line 3 which took place in January.

He also advised Viviane Salgadothe woman who was taken to jail and charged with “sabotage” of the mass transit system, after she accidentally dropped washing machine blades onto train tracks.

For its part, it is not the first time that the Sheinbaum government accuses the alleged abuses of Benítez, since since last February 19 the president had already mentioned “extortion”.

“It’s abuse. If a person chooses a lawyer, just make sure they don’t take advantage of it. Of course, they have every right to choose their lawyers, but the truth is that there are very abusive lawyers, who don’t want to support a victim, but want financial gain,” Sheinbaum said in previous days.